Chitra Puja - March, 2021

Jai Gurudeva!

This morning our monks celebrated the Chitra nakshatra with their usual padapuja to Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Yogi's Dayanatha and Haranandinatha performed the abhishekam.

"When you meditate, you become inwardly strong. You become extremely sensitive, and sensitivity is strength. But if you are not psychologically adjusted to the things you may be hearing and seeing and the depth to which you might see, you might see things that will be disturbing to you, that will upset your nerve system. Now, it is true that if you are centered in yourself completely enough to be all spine and just a being of energy, you can go anyplace in any type of environment, inside or outside, and the environment would be better for your having been there. You would not absorb any of the distracting or negative vibrations. But until that day comes, it is better to be wise and live in a positive vibration and among people who can help stabilize the force field around you, so that your inner life goes on without interruptions—of spinning out, having to crawl back, and spinning out and then having to crawl back. Why go through all those frustrating experiences, which are inconvenient, time consuming and totally unnecessary?" Gurudeva

Gurudeva: \"Being on the path is a marvelous thing, but it is a path.\"

\"There are jungles on either side, and if we wander off into the jungle, taking too many liberties, continuity of the vibration of our unfoldment will begin to wane.\"

\"Suppose you are meditating regularly in the morning and at night, day after day. Perhaps they\

re not long meditations, but they are regular. You are generating a certain vibration out of it.\"'

\"If you then stop that routine and take your awareness into feeling sorry for yourself or mentally arguing with a friend, you lose the subtle thread of superconsciousness.\"

\"You\

re going through an old, old pattern and it will be difficult to get back into the vibration of meditation. Your dreams at night may become nightmares. Your circle of friends may change. This is called, in a sense, spinning out into a different area of the mind.\"'

\"If you have not yet experienced this yet, it\

s not a recommended experience on the path. And if you have experienced it, you know what I am talking about, and you know the importance of protecting yourself and your meditations.\"'

\"Psychic protection, to sensitive people, is extremely important. It involves every detail of life—your home, friends, clothes, diet, even your dreams.\"

\"You should live in places that are clean, very clean. Paint your place. Assure yourself that the inner atmosphere is clean and unpolluted.\"

\"We have an outer atmosphere and we have an inner atmosphere. The inner atmosphere can become polluted, too, just like the outer atmosphere can.\"

\"All sorts of influences from the astral plane can come in on the inner atmosphere, and this we don\

t want.\"'

\"We want the inner flow of the inner atmosphere, which is within this atmosphere of air and ether, to be absolutely peaceful and sublime. How is this done?\"

\"By keeping your house, your meditation room, as clean as possible. By entertaining few guests and then only people of the same caliber and nature.\"

\"Guests, other than close relatives, should not stay more than three nights. Why? Because otherwise they bring too much distraction, too many other influences into the home. Finally, the whole atmosphere may be disrupted.\"

\"Many families have broken up and lost their home, and children have gone homeless, simply because guests have stayed too long and worked into the inner atmosphere and brought in too many influences of a distracting and disturbing nature.\"

\"This is an old, old traditional custom of hospitality that dates back many thousands of years, and these old customs are based on sound judgment. If they are understood and followed, they assure and protect our contemplative life.\"

\"Keep your environment positive, so that the inner feeling is always content. Keep your home shrine or meditation space radiant, so that the inner feeling there is always uplifting.\"

\"As you advance along the path, the radio mechanism will become highly tuned, very positive.\"

\"Being positive, it will register all types of influences. Influences that are distasteful to you will come through as strongly as influences that are really magnificent.\"

\"You have to learn to shield out the static by finely tuning this mechanism. That is why you strive for mastery ofsadhana,mastery of concentration, your ability to hold awareness where you want it, when you want it for as long as you want it,\"

\"and mastery of your ability to experience Kaif, pure awareness aware only of itself, by taking awareness out of the entire context into just being aware.\"

\"This practice of kaif is one of the fundamental protectors from psychic or astral invasion, for when you are in that state, great clarity and willpower persist and the lower states are transcended. To attain and sustain kaif is a simple practice.\"

\"You pull awareness out of the thought processes. You pull awareness out of the emotion processes. You pull awareness out of the bodily processes, and you\

re just completely on that pinnacle of being aware of being aware. Thats so necessary to practice every day, even if you do it for a split second.\"'

\"The experience of kaif can be attained by anyone on the face of the Earth, at least for a split second, because it\

s so easy to be aware of being aware. To hold that experience and to stabilize the physical and emotional elements long enough to hold that intensity for even a minute takes more practice--not too much, but consistent practice. To maintain kaif for two minutes requires more effort, more will, more dedication to the life of sadhana. Five minutes requires more. That\'s the test.\"'
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